After Burner ranks alongside the likes of Outrun and Double Dragon in really epitomising the joy of arcade gaming. Sitting in the specially-created booth with lights and sounds crashing all around you is simply a delight which can eat up as many hours as it does coins. Now console gamers can feel the high-octane thrill of flying fully-loaded strike fighters in the comfort of their living rooms as After Burner: Climax arrives on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. While the game fails to truly recreate the After Burner arcade magic, it does provide an enjoyable and lasting challenge for players who love to rack up the big scores.

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For the uninitiated, After Burner: Climax is essentially an on-rails shooter featuring jet fighters, in which players blast enemies from the sky to a pumping dance soundtrack. Gamers can vary their flight speed, trigger barrel roles and lock on targets, but ultimately they are guided through a series of essentially linear flight paths in the fast-paced yet short levels. Climax is most definitely not a realistic flight-simulation game, but it does offer a genuinely fun arcade experience that can be indulgently addictive.

In the console version, three planes are available to choose from: the F/A-18E Super Hornet, the F-15E Strike Eagle and the F-14D Super Tomcat, which replaces the series-staple F-14 Tomcat. Players predominantly use chain guns and rockets (with lock-on targeting) to down enemies, but the game also incorporates a climax bar which when full enables players to slow down time and target a larger group of enemies to destroy all at once. The gameplay system is sufficiently simple to enable most players to feel instantly at home when taking on the fast-paced levels.

Despite being very accessible, Climax also offers a learning curve in which more hardcore gamers can perfect their movement and aiming skills over repeated plays to earn more points. Indeed, achieving maximum scores by causing the most destruction on the levels is really the meat of Climax, which is perfectly in keeping with its arcade heritage. Those players who spent hours sat in the After Burner hot seat intently focused on getting their name to the top of the leaderboard will certainly do so all over again on the consoles.

However, any players not keen on point scoring may find little motivation to play the shooter over and over as there is no story or context to immerse them in the action. This means that the gameplay can get rather repetitive after a while, especially considering the pretty basic available modes of Arcade, Practice and Score Attack (infinite lives). A possibly bigger issue, though, is that Climax lacks the sense of drama that came with the arcade. When you remove the specially-created booth complete with moving seat, control stick and sound system, then some of the magic goes with it. Heading to the arcades with a sweaty pocketful of coins was always an event, but that sense of theatre is absent when playing at home.

Presentation-wise, though, the game's sharpened graphics have pleasingly retained the retro feel of the original series, which just oozes nostalgia. Indeed, most After Burner veterans will feel instantly at home when playing Climax, which is fitting as the game is really for the fans. Players who invest the time in racking up big scores and beating the levels will also open up EX Options which are basically a series of rewards, such as additional continues and permanently firing chain guns, to increase the re-playability.

Despite a few niggling issues, the console port of After Burner: Climax is still great fun to play and very addictive. The new version may lack the thrill of sitting in the gaming booth in a dingy arcade, but it stays admirably true to the After Burner heritage. Due to its repetitive nature, some players may find that the game's lustre wears off pretty quickly, meaning that they could wonder what the fuss was all about in the first place. However, Climax will ultimately appeal to After Burner veterans who love racking up the big scores to become Top Gun of the leaderboard.